retiring the sea legs

Good morning from shanghai,
Before I get to that I will back track a bit.
If I repeat blame it on the boat, carly an I are.
The day after the long hot 4 hour 3 gorges boat cruise where if I had
Had a gun I might have used it on either myself to end my sheer boredom; or failing that
On some of either to annoying europeans or loud amerikans!
Either way it was all over and we boarded our boat again and continued our sailing
On the yangtze.
And then we had yet another lunch on board too spicy no options.
Thank goodness for our power bars albeit running low stash.
The rest of the afternoon we opted for peace and quiet on our floor balcony.
One tends to get ingienous when forced too.
Grabbed a few of our room chairs lifted them over the barriers and made a quasi
Type chaise lounge. Sat there for hours.
Most people were up on the happy hour deck.
Dinner once again, spicy but a little calmer.evening entertainment was
You guessed it, talent night.
Lucky for us the talent were the chinese staff doing beautiful dances about emperors
And princesses. One of their young staff did a michael jackson
Breakdance. Good
Next day docked and boarded a bus for the 3 gorges dam project.
By this time it was hot, humid and no matter what you wore it clung to you.
I am now sick from the very uncontrollabe ac. Coughing up a storm. Annoying ppl around me as
I gasp for air. My extremely sympathetic travelling companion moving away
From me as she is deathly afraid of catching this cough!
Sweat dripping down all our faces as this very good english
Speaking guide iis droning on and on. In the background is this loud
Bleachblond, large woman whining in her dallas drawl to her unfortunate husband
About the heat!
The absolute highlite of that trip was I got and haggled well for
An authentic mahjong set like the chinese play. Hopefully it isn't
Made out of tusks from some elephant.
Dragged ourselves back onto the buses ready for showers.
Packed the bags, on deck and happy to disembark @ noon.
4 sleeps 3 days on the boat, too much. 9 days would possibly
Have killed me!
We 5 are then met by a 21 year old english speaking guide shirley.
We go into a cab and off to some restaurant.
Food wasn't spicy as we put in our request. Actually the fish was sweet and sour tasty.
We then toured around a bit and she brought us to the 3gorges airport.
Later to board a 2 hour plane ride to shanghai.
By the way the food on chinese airlines is good. Noodles or rice always
Hot and the cutest little colored box of salad, sweet bread
Hot cloths. Tea usually green and or coffee, already has sugar and some kind
Of cream.
Arrived in shanghai city of expo 2010. Met by a very young inexperienced
Tour guide, who while looked cool and together, had no clue what was going on.
Took us to a hotel to find we weren't actually registered there. On to the holiday -nn
In puxi shanghai and voila we got rooms.
Now, the problem of dinner. It is now 8pm, some of us are down right bitchy, in need
Of a shower and personal space. The guide screwed up with the
Restarant and we ended up as having no plans, although the tour
Company still owed us a dinner.
We stood in the lobby trying to work this out.
Granpa and the tour guide arguing in mandarin, grandma telling him it
Isn't the guides fault.
Carly grandson and me falling into soft chairs in the lobby waiting .
Finally, the 2 kids went out as shanghai @ night is spectactular.
We 3 old ppl went upstairs and ate delicious pizza.
Veggie pizza in china is full of veggies, yum.
We will present a united front when we hand our dinner bill to the young tour kid who
Willrejoin us in 2 days time.
The hotel is perfect and today will be a good day. We are headed with
A new guide for shuzou, later friends